


My life on paper

by glovered



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Samnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glovered/pseuds/glovered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever random triggers Sam has for his hell flashbacks, his consciousness sidesteps them by becoming blank!slate!Sam. Amnesia!fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [De_Nugis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/gifts).



> Written for the [Oh Sam commentfic](http://ohsam.livejournal.com/268016.html) meme.  
> This might be kind of depressing, but in my mind it turns out okay obviously? Also, dub-con bc Sam has amnesia.

"Hey. Easy there, tiger."

Sam gently sidestepped him. "You don't need to walk me to the bathroom. I'm not injured."

Dean held out a hand like Sam might fall at any second. "Yeah, I know, I just. You tell me if anything hurts, okay?"

"What, was I in a fight or something?" He had various aches and pains, but they seemed to be mostly related to having been conked out, hooked up to an IV. The conditions were unsanitary as well. Instead of a hospital, he'd woken up in a guest bedroom on the second floor of a poorly lit house, yellow curtains billowing softly in the afternoon breeze when he'd first opened his eyes.

"You could say that."

The guy wasn't telling him anything. Sam'd push more once he had some lunch, at least. He hesitated before heading into the bathroom, unsure of what face was going to meet him in the mirror.

"You say we're brothers?" he asked. "So we look alike?" He seriously hoped so. Kind of embarrassing.

Dean shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, not really, but sorta."

Dude looked like a male model, so Sam couldn't be that ba— He stepped in front of the mirror. "Oh."

Dean clapped him on the back. "Them's the cards life dealt you. Read 'em and weep."

Sam touched two fingers to his ski slope nose, the unfamiliar cleft of his chin. "My face—"

"Sorry man."

He outlined his lips with a fingertip as he broke into a grin. "—is fan _tastic_. Holy shit! I'm hotter than you!"

Dean busted up like he was surprised, like it was the best joke he'd heard all year. Sam just laughed right along with him, watching them both in the reflection, the unfamiliar crinkle around his eyes, the way Dean laughed with his mouth wide open, head thrown back.

"I mean what is this?" Sam said, grabbing a handful of hair that seriously needed to be cut. And that just set Dean wheezing with his hands on his knees, which was pretty fucking gratifying, all Sam could think to want in the world at this point.

"Been calling you a yeti for years," Dean got out, gasping.

"Old me must be kinda slow."

"You're not wrong."

Sam didn't feel the urge to stand up for old him; he didn't know the guy, didn't owe him anything. He ran his hands through his mane and muttered, "Man, that's ugly. God must be punishing me or something."

Dean choked on air.

Sam turned from the mirror. "Dude, are you feeling all right? You're going all...splotchy."

In answer, Dean manhandled him into a tight hug that went on a few seconds too long.

Sam patted him on the back with the flat of his palm, muttering, "Jesus Christ." Dean had gone from laughing to near sobbing into Sam's shoulder within seconds. Guy was a complete mess.

    


  
That night was steak and Sam dug in with gusto. Life seemed fresh and new and everything was untried. The tang of local IPA hit his tongue just right. He poured half a bottle of barbecue sauce onto his plate and dipped a hunk of meat into it.

"This is really good," he said around the mouthful. "Where'd you learn to cook like this?"

Dean's eyes crinkled with his smile. "Bobby here's a homebody," he said, which earned him a whap on the back of the head with a dishtowel.

Bobby sat down with his own plate. "Glad to see you got your appetite up. But maybe you better slow it down a little."

"Man needs meat in his life, isn't that right, Sam?"

Sam shrugged and nodded. Sounded about right.

"So how you doing this time?"

"Well, Bobby—it's Bobby, right? Not Mister—"

"Bobby's fine."

"I've had a few moments where I thought I remembered something. Like deja vu. I remember lots of facts about the world, but nothing about my own life. It's pretty annoying, to be honest."

"I can imagine."

They ate in silence for a second, before Dean said, "Sam."

Sam looked up. Dean was far too pretty to be related to him, it didn't seem possible. Guy acted like a hardass, but he had this fringe of eyelashes and a brush of freckles across his nose. Delicate hands holding his steak knife just so, like he'd been trained for surgery instead of fixing up cars.

"Sam, we're gonna try something different this time. I'm going to let you remember things on your own, because the last couple of times you've passed out once you started remembering things."

Sam froze. "Passed out—Don't you think you should have _told_ me this hours ago? Or, I don't know, taken me to a hospital?"

"Sam. Sammy, look at me. Sam." Sam controlled his breathing, but felt tears prickling at his eyes. Embarrassing. "Sam, you're safe here. And it's complicated. You gotta trust me, man. You're doing great, just trust me."

Sam didn't nod, but he guessed his staying seated was answer enough. What other fucking choice did he have? For the first time since he could remember, he felt depressed, pissed, fucked-over.

Dean rubbed at his eyes and took a deep breath, like this was hard on him, before making his way up stairs. Bobby sighed and patted Sam on the arm.

"Thanks for letting me stay here, Bobby." Sam hadn't even thanked them yet, these strangers.

"Oh for the love of Pete," Bobby said, and went to get him some mint chip ice cream, claiming it had always been his favorite, ever since he was a kid.

    


  
He ended up eating his own cut and half of Dean's, not to mention the two bowls of ice cream. It laid him up until eleven puking his guts out.

There were footsteps on the old stairs, the now-familiar sound of boots. Sam rested with his eyes shut, dignity left to those not with their faces pressed to toilet seats.

"Hey, hey." A hand came down to rub him between the shoulder blades, circles that got less tentative as the moments passed. "Just hang in there," Dean breathed.

"What did I do to deserve this?" Sam moaned. "Am I allergic? Lactose intolerant? Is that it? Why didn't you tell me?"

"No, it's just, old Sam usually sticks to the lighter stuff. Less meat, more carrots. Even went vegetarian there without telling me for a few months."

Of course. He opened his eyes long enough for a half-hearted glare. "You're such a dick, Dean."

"That's more like it," Dean soothed. It sounded right with his voice. He seemed unashamed to sit with Sam for half an hour, rubbing his back, almost silent. That didn't sit well with Sam, though. It meant Dean'd had occasion to do this more than once. That, coupled with the way Dean and Bobby talked about death like it was a person and they were on decent terms with him....it was all pretty fucked up.

"Maybe he's never coming back," Sam said when he finally sat upright.

Dean yanked him bodily to standing and handed him a toothbrush, and wouldn't let him follow up on that thought.

    


  
If Dean and Bobby thought they were keeping him out of the loop, they were seriously kidding themselves. Sam could get a lot from just wandering through the house.

Religious texts piled up most walls like a badly-organized goldmine of knowledge, a roadmap to heaven if you could crack the chaos. There was a ton of paraphernalia on demons and angels. There were pentagrams on the ceiling and when he toed up the back rug to check, sure enough, that symbol was there, too. He drew the drapes and saw that there were others, sigils tagged on the dirty window panes, painted in what looked like blood.

It was obvious...they were part of a cult or something. Sam hadn't met any other members yet, but two other dudes had been mentioned a few times. Castiel, Crowley...there were some others, but Sam's head felt swimmy when he thought too hard about it. Best to stick to the easy stuff till the world leveled out.

Also, it seemed Dean had a child. He mentioned his baby more than once, and each time, Sam felt a pang of guilt, even though he couldn't do anything about it except prove that he was well enough Dean could take off for a while, get on with his real life. Sam had to stop dragging him down.

"Dean, I'm fine," he told him. "I'm more than fine, I feel great. Healthy. You can leave for whatever you need to do, you know?"

Dean gave him a steady look from Bobby's desk. "Doesn't it bother you? Not knowing?"

Sam had given up, sorta. He wasn't sure he wanted to be part of whatever it was they had going on here. "It would be nice to know, I guess, but I don't really care much. I mean, there can't be that much to tell, right?"

Dean was up, out of the chair, across the room. Sam backed up a step but then Dean was grabbing him by the front of the shirt.

"You don't care?" he ground out. "Again?" He seemed to be losing it.

"Woah." Sam shoved him off, but Dean only budged to arm's length, looking Sam in the eyes, breathing against his mouth. It sent a thrill up Sam's arms. "Hey, man. We're brothers. You're the one who told me that."

Dean didn't seem to get what he was saying, because his eyes went liquid, betrayed. "You think I don't know that?"

"No, no, I mean—" Sam was momentarily transfixed by the clenching of Dean's jaw, the Roman perfection of his nose. "Just, just chill okay? We'll get through this. You're freaking ou—"

Dean was up in his space, winding fists in the collars of his flannel and somehow managing to maintain sincere eye contact. "You're all I've got, Sammy. I'm not gonna lose you. Not here, not now, not after everything."

"Ahahahaha," Sam may have said. It was an unhinged sound. Dean tried to crowd in closer, but he ducked away. "I think I'm going to lie down. But I'll tell you what, maybe we could watch a movie later. You know, relax. Hang out."

"Relax?" Dean said it slowly, weight to the word; Sam had a suspicion he didn't know the meaning.

Dean seemed amenable, though. He nodded slowly, stepping back, rubbing a hand over his mouth as an afterthought. "I'll wrangle up a few brewskis," he said.

"So long as you're buyin."

Dean shot him an amused, if shaky, look. "You even got a wallet? Damn cheapskate."

Sam couldn't help but grin. Guy wasn't half bad. "Hold you to it," he said.

    


  
Day or so later, Sam finally got ahold of a laptop. First thing he did was look up the IP address. South Dakota. Huh. As far as places to be, that seemed....well, Sam didn't have any real feeling about that.

Second thing he did was google his own name. But the search results were all about some book series with a dude named Sam, no actual mention of the last name Winchester. He only gave the sites a cursory glance before sighing and giving that one up.

Finally, he went to email, which, thank god, logged in automatically. None of the messages were from Dean. He checked. It kind of made the hairs on the back of his neck raise along with his hackles, in suspicion; guy claimed to be so close to him, but here he was, not budging on the information front, and pushing Sam around, keeping him in this town with just a couple trips to the diner, during which time he acted crazy twitchy.

But then Sam remembered Bobby telling him, "you boys live in each others' pockets," and he thought maybe that was the reason. They wouldn't have to email when they could just have a conversation.

Although there weren't any emails from Dean, there were a lot of messages that were cryptic, to say the least. It seemed he was part of some fantasy, role-playing group. He clicked through a few. Emails from a ton of people most of them apparently strangers, telling him that they were glad he could help, could he meet them at...But that was about time Sam's head started to hurt, a pain that was eerily familiar.

With a mind to asking Dean for some of those pills he'd seen him pop from a bottle in his front pocket, Sam shoved the computer closed and stood. World went all lucid, and then black.

    


  
Sam woke up on the floor of a bedroom. He did a quick inventory to make sure he had all his limbs, that he wasn't bleeding out or otherwise maimed. But when he got to his feet he realized he'd still been half-dreaming. He'd had the vague impression of ghosts and goblins or something, but the more he tried to focus on it, the dream slipped away.

“Oh well.” His voice sounded off in the quiet room, like he'd never heard it before.

And where was he? God, Sam was obviously still in the throes of sleep. Maybe he was hungover. What had he done last night? He was probably at someone's parents' house. There were china plates displayed on the hall shelves and a vase of dried flowers. He'd probably gotten so wasted he'd be feeling it till tomorrow.

He went to the top of the stairs, step gentle, and overheard the following conversation echoing up to him:

"Spit it out, Bobby." The voice sounded nice, comforting.

"I'm not sure, is all. Whaddaya think you're actually doing with the kid?"

It sounded like someone was storming around the room. "You wanna tell me? Because I've got absolutely _no_ clue. I mean, dead to the world is one thing, writhing in the lockbox of Hell is bum luck, but downright insanity-induced amnesia? That's something entirely different."

Hell? The older voice receded, muttering, "All right, all right. Keep your pants on." And followed this with something about 'sandwiches to keep the morale up,' but the blood was rushing in Sam's ears. He clung to the banister.

"Two weeks. God dammit." Someone kicked the wall, then did it again for good measure.

World blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

"Sam!" Dean rushed up the stairs and knelt to check Sam's pulse. It was strong, if erratic. He smacked Sam a little on the face.

Sam, stretched out under him in the hall, groaned and blearily opened his eyes, reaching out to Dean on impulse. "Wha—Who are you?"

Dean sighed and sat back on his heels. "Not again."

    


  
Dean rapped at the guest room door with the back of his knuckles. Time to face the music.

When Sam called from inside, he tipped the door wider and held the plate like a peace offering, a grin in place just in case. "Brought you some grilled cheese."

Sam turned fully in the desk chair and moved aside so Dean could put it on the table. "Thanks, man."

He looked the same, in a green flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows and the same jeans. Dean should have been used to this by now, what with shacking up with Sam's more soulless counterpart for the better part of a year, but he just wasn't. Sam's mannerisms were all off, and he didn't know anything that made Sam who he was.

"How you feeling?"

"I'm good, I'm good. I mean, I don't remember anything yet, but I'm fine."

He hadn't snapped back, then. Dean's shoulders slumped. "We were worried about that. Here, eat. You always do crazy shit when you're low blood sugar."

"Dean," Sam said. "Just tell me something, anything." He looked kind of pissed off, but in a simple way, that way where he didn't know what he was asking and didn't know where they'd been. "Come on man. You can't leave me in the dark. Was I in an accident or something?"

Dean took a step forward, couldn't help it. “Look, Bobby figures that whatever random triggers you have for....flashbacks, well, your subconscious sidesteps them or something."

"And gives me amnesia?"

"Pretty much."

"Talk about fucked up," Sam muttered.

"So here's the thing. We're gonna go slow. Give it a few days this time. I'll drop a few things here and there. Sam? You listening?"

Sam was looking out the window in thought, over the mangled, metal bodies of a thousand wreckers Bobby'd never found the time to fix up. “Is it PTSD or something? Was I a soldier?"

"Somethin' like."

"Is Bobby a doctor, then? Or—or a shrink?"

"Er, no. He's one of Dad's old hunting buddies."

"Hunting," Sam laughed. "What business's a dude who hangs out shooting deer got issuing mental health reports?"

There was no ready answer. Dean looked at his hands. Five times—Five times Sam had been triggered and fallen to pieces again. Five times he'd gone all blank-slate and freaky. Dean had that rogue thought again, that fear that maybe there was no way to go about this, that Sam'd never remember without splitting apart. But then he tamped that down and squashed it out in his mind.

"We will get through this." Dean stepped up close to the chair and said it like he meant it, holding Sam's gaze so he _knew_ Dean meant it. "I'm not leaving you like this, you got that? We've made it through shit before, and we'll get through this."

Sam bit his lip, obviously uncertain.

"Together," Dean said firmly. And he was all set to make some speech or something, when Sam smiled up at him, small and just for him. Dean could feel Sam's breath on his palm where he was cupping his face, noted how Sam was looking a little more reassured the longer Dean stood there. It was warming, working both ways. Dean felt tentatively hopeful, although that was never, never a good idea.

"You sure we're brothers?" Sam muttered. "Because this doesn't feel like—"

"You've got to be kidding me."

    


  
Nancy came with coffee, which Dean lunged at. Sam accepted his but shook his head when she offered them cream.

"I take mine black." He frowned. "I think." Dean could sense him looking over for confirmation, but Dean couldn't meet his eyes, thinking _wrong_.

Yeah, Dean didn't have much of an appetite, thinking how he was going to manage to ease Sam into this. It was necessary. Couldn't let Sam stave off insanity through avoidance, had to work through it. Road to healing and all that.

Dean thought about it and he thought about it. The only comfort was this place, this diner. They ate here every morning, in some vague attempt to test Sam's memory. But really Dean just liked coming here, the familiarity. Five years of dropping in for breakfast at dawn, 5AM sausage and coffee when they were worn out after a long night of checking texts from the Middle Ages that Dean could only half read. Eyes itchy because he didn't do well with dust, Dean'd gulp down a few cups and feel at least half-human again.

Sam was eating french toast with a ton of syrup and shooting Dean little concerned glances from time to time and Dean just sent him an uneasy one back. Sam kicked him under the table. "You all right, man? Looks like you got something to say."

Dean licked his lips and flicked his gaze up to Sam's. The guy was looking at him so honestly. Dean shoved three pieces of bacon into his mouth so he wouldn't have to reply.

He was going to tell him. He was going to remind him of who he was and all the shit he'd had to go through to get to this point.

But not yet. Next time. He'd get it out, even though it scared the hell out of him. He'd write it on the back of the receipt if he had to.

    


  
At six o'clock, Sam dropped down next to him on the couch, weight sinking in, legs splaying till their knees touched, denim against denim. He put something next to the couch but Dean couldn't even bear to look at him.

"How's tricks?" he said instead.

"I found stuff in yard," Sam told him, which explained the smell of sweat and grease, warm sunlight.

Dean kept his eyes firm on the flickering TV. "You been digging through old cars?"

"No. Just walking around. You know, seeing if anything sparks a memory since you don't seem to be opening up about it. I'm not bitter at all. Nope. Just hanging around, on house arrest, trying to remember who I am."

"Okay," Dean sighed. "Okay, I'll bite. What sort of stuff?"

Sam revealed what he'd been carrying. Dean knocked his head back against the couch cushions a few times at the sight of it, and only then did he look back to Sam who was smiling because he knew it was something, had probably felt lost and then found when he'd lain eyes on it in a heap of scrap metal.

"This was ours, wasn't it?" He held the license plate aloft, kind of proud of himself. "KAZ 2Y5."

"Sam," Dean tried. "You can't just bring junk in from out there. It's all trash. You're gonna get tetanus, and then you'll _really_ be dead."

"What, we too stupid to get our shots?"

"Don't exactly have health care," Dean muttered. "But no, we get check-ups. Free clinics."

"This _is_ ours." Sam leaned towards him, which was pretty damn close. "Don't lie to me, please Dean."

Dean looked away. "Maybe."

"So we're from Kansas."

"Yes, Sam. Kansas. Happy now? We're from Kansas."

Sam wedged his foot under Dean's so their ankles were resting together. He said, "See, that wasn't so hard."

Dean felt a tug in his gut which just wouldn't do. "Ho-kay."

He got up and popped in a videotape and made sure that, when he sat down again, it was farther down the couch, out of reach.

Sam didn't seem to notice, but Dean knew he was a devious bastard and struggled to keep his guard up even though Sam looked attentively at the screen in ways he wouldn't normally if Dean was trying to force the classics on him.

"So, What is this?"

Dean smiled. "Best movie ever. Well, it's in my top twenty. Blade Runner?"

"Sure, sure," Sam said.

"Hey, I would never lie to you. I'm taking care of your education, that's what I'm here for. And this is your lesson in sci-fi. Now pay attention."

The opening credits, the gritty vcs quality. Sam settled back and didn't comment. Dean drank down half his beer and then rested it between his knees.

The movie made him think. He always managed to get Sam back, talk him back into his memories, but every time, he saw all the horror crashing back: the hell memories, the soulless days memories, the plain reality that was their lives. Sam was like a ten year old who got told he was gonna spend the rest of his life doing the world's dirty work. Sometimes Dean thought, maybe Sam was better off this way, ignorant, in a state of annoyance, if not bliss.

He was lost in thought, so he didn't notice when things started to go sideways again. And maybe it was the familiarity, hanging out with a beer and someone who at least looked like Sam by his side, smelled like Sam, after a trying day. Maybe it was all screwing with his head, but whatever the reason, he sure took a second too long to react when Sam crowded up to him on the couch. He was the last person Dean would expect, was maybe why Dean turned towards him in surprise, taking time to fumble his beer upright on the floor, instead of shoving Sam off straight away. Sam was suddenly all over him, kissing his neck, then his mouth.

Dean parted his lips to say something, anything, something indignant, but of course Sam took that as permission and kissed him for real this time, licking at Dean's teeth and moaning into Dean's mouth. He pushed a hand up his shirt to graze nails over Dean's bare skin.

"Fuck," Dean groaned, splaying his knees because Sam had kind of launched himself onto them, and Dean didn't want to worry about finding the guy another kidney on top of everything.

Sam settled in to kiss him slow into the cushions for a second longer, smiling and saying, "Hell yeah" against Dean's lips. Which was too much. Shock broke and Dean shoved him off. Sam went with a resigned sort of disappointment.

"Woah." Dean glared at him, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "Dude."

Sam shrugged and grabbed Dean's beer off the ground. "Yeah, yeah. Save it." He drank the rest of the beer.

"Hey!"

Sam ignored him. He leaned toward the TV, hands dangling over his knees. "I've seen this before. Yeah, I've definitely seen this before. I don't think I like it very much."

Dean felt jittery, could still taste Sam on his tongue. "Seriously? Amnesia and this is still the thing you remember, that you don't like my favorite movie?"

"One of your top twenty," Sam corrected him. "And if it's important, it's important."

Dean snorted, feeling his guts twist again, but bad.

"Actually—Huh, this part looks _really_ familiar." Sam half-stood, eyes glued to the TV. "Familiar like—"

Dean got a hand on his arm, just as he went down. "Sam!"

    


  
It was hard to watch. Sometimes Dean just wanted to put that moment off, maybe forever. See if Sam could have a fresh start.

Bobby was currently pacing a groove into the throw rug. "Seems like after what happened when the wall fell, Sam's brain periodically closes off under stress, puts up its own sort of barrier."

"Well at least he's not comatose." Dean wouldn't say it aloud, that he would almost prefer it that way, Sam knocked out until his brain finished putting things back together. "It's real creepy, Bobby."

"You're telling me. The kid jumped back when I pulled out a gun this morning. Just cleaning it to protect your ass, I told 'im. You know what he said to that? He gave me a lecture on gun control."

"Yeah, he remembers some stuff. It's freaking bizarre, that's what it is."

Maybe they could knock him out till his subconscious did the work for them, melded bits back together like an ugly scar. It was a real temptation.

"No, but I promised I'd never do that to him," Dean said. "And I'm not gonna. We've already gone through this, losing him. I don't want to do it again."

Bobby looked at him with too much pity. Dean grabbed a bottle from the bookshelf in a jerky moment of barely controlled emotion. He poured them both a couple inches in tumblers that had been sitting out since the night before.

Bobby rolled his eyes as he accepted. "Yeah, cuz all of us forgettin's gonna help loads." But he drank anyway.

Sam came in then, slouching awkwardly against the door frame. "I really dig the fall-out shelter."

"The panic room?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, you know," Sam made a circling motion with a finger. "The star vent thing. Nice. And the bed. Realistic-looking, like people actually vomited on the mattress."

Dean and Bobby remained silent, although their eyes caught in agreement to tell the truth before Bobby looked down to the book he was poring over.

Sam laughed, a nervous thing. "That where you guys keep dead bodies or something?"

Bobby didn't glance up from his research. "Sometimes."

"What?" Sam yelped.

"Oh for the—" Dean slammed the fridge open to get himself a beer.

"Mind piping down? I'm trying to do some research to get your fool ass out of this." Sam put both hands up in a placating gesture, and Bobby shook his head. "Dean, train your brother."

"Heh, brother," Sam muttered. Dean remembered the taste of hot dust and spit from a few days back. He wondered if Sam remembered anything about it, anything at all.

Sam got up and wandered the room. Dean watched him do it, sipping at a cold beer.

After a while, Sam stopped at Bobby's desk. He pushed a plate to Bobby's elbow. "Please, you've been mid-bite for over an hour. I don't know if old-Sam had OCD tendencies, but it's really stressing me out."

Dean laughed. "You heard the kid—eat the damn pie, Bobby."

"Ain't pie, it's cobbler."

"I'm not a kid," Sam sulked. "Hey, how old am I? I feel really old, like, like I've lived a long time."

"Hooo boy. I'm stayin out of this discussion."

Dean turned from the fridge. "Where are you going?"

"Off to town to restock on lamb's blood," Bobby said, getting up quickly.

"You're serious?" Sam spoke in the tones of one resigned to being in the clutches of criminals.

"Good luck." He left the house.

Sam instantly got all up in Dean's space, cornered him in with an arm over him on the cabinet.

"Hell-oh," Dean said. He eyed him warily. No false moves. "Do you maybe wanna stop touching me?"

Sam put both hands on Dean's hips and nosed his jaw. "No fucking way."

“Excuse me?"

"I believe we're brothers," Sam said. "But there's no way we haven't done this before."

"Uh, yah huh," Dean said, his best argument.

"I want to know who you are. I feel like I _know_ you. Like, know you-know you."

Dean slid his hands up Sam's hard chest to push him away. He didn't quite want to.

    


  
Dean was stretching out the meal. _When the food comes_ , he'd told himself. _When the food comes, that's when I'm gonna tell him_.

Sam was half way through his Reuben, and Dean hadn't said much more than, "Pass the salt, you garbage disposal of a human being" when Sam started stealing fries off his plate.

 _The next time he takes a fry, I'll tell him_. _When we finish eating, I'll tell him_.

Sam leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "I'm done. How about you?"

Dean opened his mouth to say any number of things, but Nancy was back. "You boys want dessert?"

Dean looked at Sam, who only shrugged.

"Ye—es," Dean decided. _When the pie gets here_. "I'll have a slice of your cherry pie and my little brother here'll have an otter pop."

Sam gave him the bitch face, which apparently wasn't a learned thing. In a question of nature versus nurture....

"Coming right up," Nancy said.

"I remember something about a dude."

"A dude," Dean repeated.

"Yeah, a dude with a messed up face. Asking me something. Is that a real memory?"

Dean didn't answer, though he urged himself to take the opportunity.

Sam put a hand on the table between them. "What is it? You think I won't be able to handle it?"

"Sammy, _no one_ can handle this level of bullshit." Sam frowned, so Dean gave him a truth he could tell. "You're actually the bravest person I know."

"Woah, that wasn't out of left field or anything."

Dean gave a wry laugh. He was going to tell Sam everything, right after the pie got there. He said, "Yeah. You know me, random."

"No, actually I don't." Sam inched his hand forward so his fingers were brushing the back of Dean's. Dean instantly tried to draw away but Sam held on until Dean looked at him.

"I want to though. I want to know you. I have this good feeling," Sam smiled. "Like everything's going to work out, if we let it."

"You don't know that, man."

"Call it a gut feeling. I can't really explain, but I honestly believe it."

Nancy came back right about then, empty handed. "Sorry, boys. We're out of pie. Can I get you anything else? Maybe chocolate cake?"

Well, that settled that. Pushing down a sick lurch in his stomach, Dean threw down a few twenties and stood.

"Nah, we're good here," he told her. "Keep the change."

Sam followed him out.


End file.
